Friday, September 4, 2015

Now It Can Be Told: The Story Behind L.A.'s Billion Dollar Trophy Property... plus a Special Bonus!

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Beverly Hills' $1 Billion "Vineyard": The Bizarre Saga Behind L.A.'s Last Real Estate TrophyThe 157 acres atop the city has traded hands from the Shah of Iran's sister to Merv Griffin to the mogul behind Herbalife. Then came unknown Chip Dickens, who managed to procure the property for no money at all. Now, The Vineyard is on the market, and the strange, stressful story behind the $1 billion property can be told.

This story first appeared in the Sept. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Standing atop a verdant summit near Benedict Canyon, Brad Pitt smoked a cigarette and gazed toward the ocean. A gentle afternoon sun played over the chaparral and sage below. It was 2002, and Pitt had come to Beverly Hills to take stock of a coveted piece of real estate. From the San Gabriel Mountains to Malibu, Los Angeles stretched out in a quiet, glittery panorama. It was the highest peak for miles, a true king's plot. He turned to Gary Morris, a developer and friend. "So?" mused Pitt. "You think I should buy this?"

Morris told Pitt that if he "made another movie or two," he could probably afford it. An L.A. native with salt-and-pepper hair and a wiry frame born of years of ultra-marathons, Morris knew better than to be more than a sounding board. He had watched as one figure after another became entranced with the property known as The Vineyard Beverly Hills before moving on. A few years after Pitt's visit, Tom Cruise placed about 3 percent of the $25 million sale price for one lot in escrow. But on the last day before the transaction went "hard," locking the actor's money in, Cruise's business manager canceled the order, according to multiple people familiar with the transaction. There had been other offers, and yet two decades after Morris first got involved, a single house never had been built.

Perched on a summit ridgeline with huge views looking down on the homes of some of Hollywood's biggest stars, The Vineyard is one of the last undeveloped plots in Beverly Hills, and arguably the most impressive. Visitors can peer down on estates belonging to Warren Beatty, Seth MacFarlane and the rooftop mansions of Beverly Park. For decades, the 157-acre property has bewitched some of Hollywood's most illustrious residents, from Merv Griffin to the Shah of Iran's sister. With little money, no real estate license and a lot of gumption, the de facto owner for the past 11 years has been Charles "Chip" Dickens. "I'm the most improbable character in this whole thing," Dickens, 54, tells The Hollywood Reporter. His main partner is an amiable convicted felon named Victorino Noval; together, the two now are marketing The Vineyard for $1 billion.

The saga behind one of the most pedigreed and controversial pieces of property in L.A. could be torn from the pages of a Coen brothers script. After 15 years of intense legal drama over ownership, family squabbling and an inheritance, The Vineyard might be changing hands again. And what once was no more than a dusty mountaintop has been transformed into an exquisite plateau with a helicopter pad and ample room for any architect's wildest fantasies. "It's the most spectacular property anywhere in Los Angeles," says Robert Mann, an attorney who is familiar with The Vineyard. Now, with real estate prices soaring in Los Angeles and foreign buyers pouring in, The Vineyard is poised to be the most talked-about trophy property in years. "This is one of the most exceptional properties I've ever seen in my 30-year career," says Jeff Hyland, whose agency, Hilton & Hyland, has exclusive rights to The Vineyard. "This is as good as it gets."

Long before Pitt or Cruise, The Vineyard was a prized plot. Hollywood producer Jack Bean and his wife, actress Mitzi Gaynor, owned a piece before selling during the late 1970s. Title deeds indicate a single buyer purchased several small lots and possibly combined them. Around this same time, a Middle Eastern princess also became interested. Shams Pahlavi was the elder sister of Iran's last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The princess, a convert to Catholicism who loved animals, left Iran for the U.S. during the 1970s and settled in California with her second husband, a former minister of culture and art

Shams had lush tastes and an affinity for grand building ventures. In 1966, she commissioned architects from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to build a huge palace for her in Karaj, on the outskirts of Iran's capital, Tehran. Completed in 1972, the 50,000-square-foot Pearl Palace (kakh-e Morvarid) was a sensuous wreath of circular and crescent-shaped buildings that included a zoo, gold faucets and a spiral ziggurat leading to the princess' bedroom, which was adorned with a $25,000 gold bedspread. According to Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford who has done extensive research on the shah's global financial movements, Princess Shams was a crafty operator. "When I began to look and asked about her financial dealings, it became clear that she was very much involved in shenanigans," says Milani. "She clearly had a lot of money when she left." Milani says he found evidence that Shams might not have paid the architects who designed the palace what they were owed and that she might have left Iran with as much as $700 million in tow....MUCH MORE

And in other LA real estate news,
From the Los Angeles Times:

'Most expensive' mansion in U.S. just got cheaper: Palazzo di Amore cuts price by $46 million

The gated estate in Beverly Hills that has topped the price chart of publicly listed homes for sale nationwide at $195 million since last year has lowered the bar, and its asking price, to $149 million.

Real estate entrepreneur Jeff Greene, who owns properties in Florida, New York and California, put his Palazzo di Amore on the for-sale market in November. A few months later, he also offered it for lease at $475,000 a month.

Greene bought the property in 2007 for $35 million and spent eight years expanding the Mediterranean-style mansion. The main residence has more than 35,000 square feet of living space for a total of about 53,000 square feet, including an entertainment complex he added and a detached guesthouse. There are 12 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms.

A floating-style glass-floor walkway over pools and lined by 70-year-old olive trees leads to the entertainment complex, which can seat up to 250 dinner guests. The 15,000-square-foot complex also has a 50-seat theater, a bowling alley and a disco/ballroom with a revolving floor, a DJ booth and a laser-light system....MORE